Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Crossway, 2007.
Shakespeare never merely allegorizes biblical figures or passages, but, occasionally, a passage from the Bible and a passage from Shakespeare seem to deeply related. This passage from Job seems to have been transmuted into one of Lear's more famous scenes, if not to any specific speech.

Here's Job 23:5-8:

Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert
the poor go out to their toil, seeking game;
the wasteland yields food for their children.
They gather their fodder in the field,
and they glean the vineyard of the wicked man.
They lie all night naked, without clothing,
and have no covering in the cold.
They are wet with the rain of the mountains
and cling to the rock for lack of shelter.

And here's part of Lear III.iv that seems to point toward that.

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.

It's impossible to calculate the exact degree to which Shakespeare was indebted to the Bible (if "indebted" is even the right term), but it's clear that he had imbibed vast portions of the Bible over a vast range of time. If you read enough of both of them, you start to get a sense of how much reading either gives you more of the other.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Ryan, Dermot. "Hollywood Heavyweights Fly in for a Reel Taste of Shakespeare." Herald.ie. 1 July 2008. I've been at the State Fair all day, which hasn't left much time for posting. However, I remembered this article on a forthcoming film version of Lear. Although I loved Sir Ian McKellen's Lear, I think Anthony Hopkins will do marvelously well, thanks!

The character playing the character playing Hamlet has been refusing to use the exact words of the speeches, preferring, instead, to paraphrase the lines until he's able to internalize him. In this scene, deleted from the broadcast but included on the DVD, he finally starts using Shakespeare's words. Later in the scene, in something of an epiphany, he break out in Lear—showing that he's actually perfectly capable of using the language. Check it out:

Do you wonder what the guy in the car is doing, phoning someone after witnessing that performance? Well, get the series and watch it! Enjoy!Links: Wikipedia Entry on the Series.

Click below to purchase the show from amazon.com(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Thursday, August 28, 2008

“Showpiece: Wanton.” Straighty 180. 27 August 2008.
One of the most devastating speeches in Lear is Gloucester's to Edgar at IV.i.28-39:

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.

You wouldn't think that those lines would easily lend themselves to commodification. But the people of Straighty 180 alter these lines slightly and use them to market . . . marketing itself. Or, at least, to market themselves. See the startling, distrubing ad below:

[Like] flies to wanton [girls] are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

King Lear. Dir. Michael Elliott. Perf. Laurence Olivier, Colin Blakely, John Hurt, Diana Rigg, and Leo McKern. 1983. DVD. Kultur Video, 2000.
One of the many, many-and-manifold reasons the Olivier Lear is so astounding is Diana Rigg. She can give a single look that embodies violence, death, and destruction. And she can do it right after a look that expresses the deepest empathy.

The clip below is from the end of Act III. That point in the play gives us one of the many, many-and-manifold decisions that a director must make that can change the timbre of the entire play. In blinding Gloucester, Cornwall has been injured; he asks Regan to help him. Take a look at how this Regan helps her husband:

Bardfilmis normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilmis a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:

KJ is a professor of English and Literature at a small Christian liberal arts college. In addition to courses entitled “Shakespeare” and “Introduction to Shakespeare,” he teaches a course called “Shakespeare and Film.” Recently, he developed a course titled “Modern Shakespearean Fiction.” Shakespeare is also integrated into nearly all his other courses, including courses on the Literature of Food and the Literature of Humor. Additionally, he is the author of Bardfilm: The Shakespeare and Film Microblog. But you may have known that already.